Spring 2012

The following are the course numbers of the classes offered through the English Department (listed within The University Catalog under ENGL). Each number will send you to a brief description of the course, when available.
130	130P	130E	203	220	230
240	251	252	253	254	258
260	264	276	277	278	279
315	321	327	333	335	340
341	342	353	354	355	356
357	358	360	365	371	375
419	420	421	431	440	441
448	449	450	453	454	456
464	465	467	470	471	473
474	478	519	534

Option in English Studies: Courses offered for Spring 2012 (pdf)
Option in Literature: Courses offered for Spring 2012 (pdf)
Option in General English: Courses offered for Spring 2012 (pdf)

English 130: Academic Writing

English 130P: Academic Writing

English 130E: Academic Writing

English 203: Shakespeare On Film

Section(s): 1
Professor: Robert O'Brien

From the silent-movie era to the present, filmmakers have interpreted Shakespearean drama; some of these interpretations have been lost, others are of dubious quality, but a large number are masterpieces of cinematic art.

In this course, you'll study some of the best Shakespeare films made since the Second World War. By the end of the semester, you will have gained a deeper understanding of both film and Shakespeare.

Classes will be a mixture of lectures, discussions, and film showings. Outside of class, you'll read synopses, scenes, and passages from the plays. You'll also write essays responding to the readings and films and take a mid-term and final examination.

English 220: Creative Writing

English 230: Intro to Technical Writing

English 240: Introduction to Literature

English 251: African American Literature

Section(s): 1
Professor: Tracy Butts

ENGL 251 (AFAM 251) is a survey of African American literature. The course begins with an exploration of the African American oral tradition, focusing upon folktales, both early and contemporary, and Spirituals, and then moves into the written tradition with slave narratives, poetry, essays, prose nonfiction, novels, short stories, and dramas.

Texts:

Students will be asked to demonstrate their learning in a variety of formats—formal and informal writing assignments (essays and discussion board posts), quizzes, class participation, and individual projects.

This course fulfills the Area C2 general education and U.S. Diversity requirements.

Syllabus

Back to Top

English 252: American Indian Literature

English 253: Asian American Literature

English 254: Chicano/Latino/a Literature

English 258: World Literature

English 260: Great Books: Literature of the Fantastic

Section(s): 1, 2
Professor: John Traver

From the visions of hell in Dante’s Inferno to the super-heroes in Alan Moore’s Watchmen, imaginative works have exercised a vital role in the development of literature and culture. From talking wolves in Aesop’s Fables to talking horses in Gulliver’s Travels, authors envision strange worlds which provide new perspectives on everyday life, or they might demonstrate that the “ideal” world we imagined isn’t as desirable as we thought it was. Our class will cover a diversity of genres, drawing from the novel (e.g., Shelley’s Frankenstein), poetry (e.g., Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner), and the drama (e.g., Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream).

Course expectations: short writing assignments, 2 papers, a mid-term, and a final exam.

Text(s):

Back to Top

English 264: American Ethnic/Regional Writers

English 279: Survey of American Literature II

Section(s): 1
Professor: Aiping Zhang

This course is a survey of American literature between the end of the Civil War and the start of the Jazz Age. We will start the course with an overview of the historical and cultural context in which American literature transformed itself through a series of major literary experiments. By reading representative literary works in various genres, we will study a very diverse group of authors who made key contributions to the development of the “Local Color” Writing, Native American Folklore, American Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, Lost Generation, and African American literature during this period. Voluntary presentations will be organized to encourage the students' participation in discussion.

Text(s):

Back to Top

English 276: Survey of British Literature

English 277: Survey of British Literature

English 278: Survey of American Literature

English 279: Survey of American Literature

English 321: Fiction Writing

English 327: Creative Nonfiction

Section(s): 1
Professor: Paul Eggers

In this course, you’ll be utilizing fiction-writing techniques to write about events and ideas from your own life. The two words in the course title say it all: the writing will be “creative” in that it will utilize the techniques fiction writers use (no previous experience with fiction writing is assumed); it is also creative in that it acknowledges the interesting limitations and “fill in the blanks” tendencies of human memory, as well as the presence and attitudes of the author. Additionally, the writing is nonfiction in that you’re drawing from your own experiences, telling a true story. But calling a story “true” is tricky business, and the role of the imagination, the limitations of memory, and the difficult distinctions between true and not true, or factual and non-factual, make creative nonfiction compelling to read and to write.

We’ll draft, workshop, and revise short memoir pieces, personal essays, and, if we have time, literary journalism (and of course we’ll spend time discussing what these terms mean). Our class text will be Bill Roorbach’s Creative Nonfiction: The Art of Truth, which contains excellent examples of these different types of creative nonfiction from some of our most famous writers.

Back to Top

English 333: Advanced Composition for Future Teachers

English 335: Rhetoric and Writing

English 340: Approaches to Literary Genres

Section(s): 1, 2
Professor: Geoff Baker

The goal of this course is to introduce us to the tools we use to read, analyze and discuss the three primary literary genres of poetry, drama, and fiction. We’ll be reading a diverse and fascinating cross-section of traditional and modern poems, tragedy and comedy, and fictions, both short and long. Along the way, we’ll become familiar with the terminology used to dig into literature and to explain what it does, why it does it, and why we value it.

Text(s):

Back to Top

English 341: Reading Literature for Future Teachers

Section(s): 1
Professor: Peter Kittle

This course focuses on three essential ideas, all encompassed in the course title: reading, literature, and teaching. In the course, students will read a variety of literature, ranging from contemporary novels (like Water for Elephants and The Help) to classical works (like Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing) to children's tales (like The Wizard of Oz and The Hunger Games). Professional texts about reading processes and teaching literacy to elementary-age students will round out the course readings. Assignments include group presentations, exams, online postings, and book-related projects. This is a "hybrid" class, meeting twice per week face-to-face, with additional course work completed through a variety of online learning tools. Internet access is required.

Back to Top

English 342: Literature of the Child

Section(s): 1
Professor: Teresa Huffman Traver

Literature of the Child is an introduction to literature written for or about children. Our readings draw from three centuries of literary depictions of children. Some of the questions we’ll pose include: what is the purpose of children’s literature? Why are children depicted the way they are in literature? What kinds of things does this literature suggest about the role of the developing child in relation to the family, the local community, the environment, and the wider world? Assignments include papers, a presentation, discussion board postings, a midterm, and a final exam.

Text(s):

Back to Top

English 353: Multicultural Literature

English 354: Classical Literature

English 355: Bible as Literature

Section(s): 1
Professor: John Traver

Why do President Obama’s speeches positively reference a “brother’s keeper?” Why does the narrator of Moby Dick want to be called “Ishmael?” In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, how much of the “story” is of his own invention? To answer such questions, readers need a shared familiarity with the Bible that many writers and thinkers have taken for granted.

This course will provide you with a working knowledge of the structure and themes of the Bible to help you recognize allusions and perceive its influence on the shape of English literature; we’ll look at the Bible alongside examples of the texts it has influenced. We’ll also examine the genres and literary qualities of the Bible itself, such as its use of symbols, typology, repetition, acrostics, and even puns! Our goals are to have a greater appreciation of the Bible as a work of literature in itself and to understand its profound effect on the shape of subsequent literature.

All levels of familiarity with the Bible are welcome (from none to knowledgeable). We will be reading in translation selections from the Hebrew Bible (or "Old Testament"), the New Testament, and the deutero-canonical works (or "Apocrypha").

Text(s):

Back to Top

English 360: Women Writers

Section(s): 1, 2
Professor: Teresa Huffman Traver

This course focuses on the two centuries of literature by women authors. Our focus is on “writers in conversation” with each other. That is, we’ll look at texts from different time periods which respond to each other in interesting ways. The course covers a broad range of readings, from nineteenth-century poetry to twenty-first century manga (Japanese graphic novels). This reading list will allow us to explore women’s writing—and women’s lives—in different historical periods and different cultural contexts. Assignments include two papers, required discussion posts, a midterm and a final exam.

Text(s):

Back to Top

English 365: Food and Literature

English 371: Principles of Language

English 375: Introduction to English Grammar

Section(s): 1
Professor: Judith Rodby

To learn to analyze the structure of the English sentence using terminology from a variety of grammars; to discuss issues of grammar and correctness, dialect, written vs. spoken language and language acquisition; to investigate style and correctness in your own writing and in published texts (literary and others).

Back to Top

English 419: Chapbook Production

English 420: Advanced Poetry Writing

Section(s): 1
Professor: Jeanne Clark

In this course, you will write new drafts of poems, poems of your own wild imaginings. You will read brand-new, hot-off-the-press poems by both established and up-&-coming poets, representing a wide constellation of voices, approaches, and subjects. And you will take one or more of your poems “off the page.”

You will consider in depth the following craft issues: voice & tone, structure & form, titles, deep revision, and preparing manuscripts for publication.

The reading list will include: American Book Award winner Camille T. Dungy and National Book Critics Circle Award winner Troy Jollimore, among others.

News Flash: Both Camille T. Dungy & Troy Jollimore will give readings on campus and will visit our class.

Prerequisite: English 320, or permission of the instructor. Graduate students may take this course for credit. Questions? Contact Jeanne Clark (Taylor 122, jeclark2@csuchico.edu)

Back to Top

English 421: Advanced Fiction Writing

Section(s): 1, 2
Professor: Rob Davidson

English 421 is an intensive workshop-based course in the writing of both fiction and creative nonfiction. All forms of literary fiction and nonfiction (i.e., the short story, the “long story,” the novella, and the novel; also, the memoir, the personal essay, literary journalism, and so forth) are welcome in this class. Students can expect to draft, workshop, and revise two full-length prose narratives over the course of the semester (approx. 30-50 pages of new writing). We will also read and discuss a range of texts from contemporary practitioners, including a scheduled class visit from Yiyun Li, selected by Granta as one of the 21 Best Young American Novelists under 35, and named by The New Yorker as one of the top 20 writers under 40. There will also be assigned expository writing related to the required readings.

Prerequisites: For fiction writers, English 321 (Fiction Writing); for non-fiction writers, English 327 (Creative Nonfiction) or the demonstrated equivalents from another institution, or instructor permission.

Text(s):

Office Hours: MWF 1:00-1:50 p.m. & M 2:00-2:50 p.m. / # 5242
Professor: Dr. Rob Davidson, 216 Taylor Hall

For more information, please e-mail: rgdavidson@csuchico.edu

Back to Top

English 431: Theory/Practice in Tutoring Composition

English 440: Chaucer and His Age

English 441: Shakespeare

Section(s): 1
Professor: Robert O'Brien

'Tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings.

In this course, we will read plays from four genres—comedy, history, tragedy, and romance—following Shakespeare's career, with some digressions, from A Midsummer Night's Dream (1594-96) to The Winter's Tale (1609). Reading these plays well means producing them in your mind's theater. This mental production demands considerable imagination and concentration, but the more you know about the plays, and the more plays you read, the easier it becomes.

Classes will be a mixture of lectures, discussions, and scene readings. You will write some short essays and a term paper and take an early-term and a final examination.

The course may be used for degrees in English Education, English Studies (as a "Middle Ages to Eighteenth-Century" course), and Literature (as an "Literary Figures" or "Early Literature" course). Our text will be the two-volume edition of The Norton Shakespeare.

Back to Top

English 446: English Renaissance Literature

Section(s): 1
Professor: Robert O'Brien

In this special section of English 446, we'll examine twentieth- and twenty-first-century responses to Shakespeare. We'll look, for example, at post-holocaust responses to The Merchant of Venice, at what a war correspondent thinks Troilus and Cressida can teach us about contemporary conflicts, and at literary responses like Aimé Césaire's A Tempest and Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Much of the course will be devoted to cinematic responses, including Roman Polanski's Macbeth, Ian McKellen's Richard III, and Julie Taymor's Tempest.

The course may be taken as an elective or used for degrees in English Education (as one of four courses in the "Literature" area of study or as one of two literature courses in the "General Studies" area), English Studies (as a "Middle Ages to Eighteenth-Century" course), or Literature (as an "Early Literature" course).

Text(s):

Back to Top

English 448: The Long Eighteenth Century

English 449: Romantic Period

Section(s): 1
Professor: John Traver

In an age of constant revolution and dramatic social change, romantic-era writings hotly contested the future of British politics and of British poetry: as the French Revolution inspires discourses on the universal “Rights of Man,” William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge argue for a poetic voice which adopts the “real language” of everyday people. We will consider this intersection between political and artistic concerns as we discuss a number of prominent poets in the Romantic era, including William Blake, Robert Burns, the “Lake Poets” (e.g., William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge), and the “Second Generation” (e.g., Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Keats), as well as re-discovered female poets such as Anna Barbauld and Charlotte Smith. In addition to prose selections from Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Thomas De Quincey’s The Confessions of an Opium-Eater, we’ll also consider some novels, most likely including Mary Shelley’s The Last Man and Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley.

Assignments will include the following: a mid-term and a final; one short paper and one longer paper; short writing assignments and/or vista; a class presentation; memorization of one poem of your choice; class participation.

Text(s):

Back to Top

English 450: The Victorian Period

English 453: Modern Drama

English 454: Comparative Literature

English 456: The British Novel

Section(s): 1
Professor: Teresa Huffman Traver

This course, as the catalog says, is a study in the Victorian novel. We'll read a wide range of novels, including examples of the social problem novel, domestic realism, and the Victorian Gothic. We’ll keep a keen eye on narrative structure, as our reading list is designed to allow us to explore different ways in which novels could be structured. The reading load will be heavy, but the texts will be rewarding: in this class, you’ll encounter rioting among workers, spontaneous combustion, and vampire invasions, to say nothing of love which extends beyond the grave. Along the way, we’ll also take a glance at some influential criticism in the areas of Victorian studies and the novel. Class attendance and participation are required. Assignments will include two papers; required discussion posts; and midterm and final exams.

Text(s):

Back to Top

English 458: American Literature-Beginning to 1850s

English 459: American Literature-1850 to 1945

English 461: Modern Novel

English 462: Study in Major American Authors

English 464: World Literature Written in English

Section(s): 1
Professor: Rob Burton

In this course, we will read and discuss four or five contemporary multicultural (and multinational) authors who use the English language as a common vehicle to articulate their singular artistic visions.

My book, Artists of the Floating World: Contemporary Writings Between Cultures (University Press of America: 2006), will be used to frame and organize the course.

Back to Top

English 465: American Literary Topics

English 467: Teaching Multicultural Literature

English 470: Second Language Acquisition

English 471: Intensive Theory & Practice Second Language Acquisition

English 473: Historical Linguistics

English 474: Syntactic/Morpho Analysis

English 478: Linguistics Approaches to Reading

Section(s): 1
Professor: Judith Rodby

Objectives of the course: We will examine these questions (and others as they arise): What are the practices or activities we call “reading”? What role does language (both first and second languages) play in these practices? How is reading a social and material practice embedded in a community of practice (and how does language interact with the social and material)? Why do some people struggle to read? How is reading understood, used, taught and assessed in school? We will also learn to read the research on reading and understand the arguments being presented.

Text(s):

Back to Top

English 519: Chapbook Production

English 534: Literature/Language/Composition

Section(s): 1
Professor: Judith Rodby

This course is intended as a capstone, a synthesizing of ideas, for students who aspire to teach English in secondary schools. Over the course of the semester we will inquire into a variety of topics connected to teaching secondary English, including but not limited to: inquiry projects, writing assignments and response to writing, reading literature and non-fiction, adolescent literature, assessment, California State Standards, discussion, technology, and issues of language use and error.

Text(s):

Back to Top